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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26980939">between the pebble and the mountain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovi/pseuds/lovi'>lovi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Minor Angst, Pining, Somewhat, just some more thoughts on these guys</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:09:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,071</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26980939</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovi/pseuds/lovi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Had they ever been close; had they ever reached an agreement? Had they ever even touched, or were they caught on either side of a perpetual mobius strip—so far distanced from one another that the opposites of their spectrum nearly made contact?</p><p>In this moment, mattress hard and cold against the flattened expanse of his sore spine, Kita felt distant: plagued by the lingering haunt of the choice between the reverence of that which fits in the palm of the hand and that which maneuvers the body with the ease of a high tide; to praise the pebble or the mountain.</p><p>- - -</p><p>more kitanoya studies</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kita Shinsuke/Nishinoya Yuu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>between the pebble and the mountain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>“Love is patient and kind, Shinsuke,”</i> he was always told. <i>“Love spreads over life like a field of grain; love young and watch it grow, watch it harvest. Love is meant to live long.”</i></p><p>Lying alone on his back in the cold winter haze of his dark bedroom, Kita believed his closest experience to love could be recapped in 15 minutes. </p><p>The squeak of rubber soles over scuffed hardwood; black lines of charcoal stroked beneath the heel, ashes left in the wake of a living flame. Heated embers buried sharp in the skull, the setting sun ensnared in a web of shoelace and gauze tape; mortalized.</p><p>The fire staring him right in the eyes and seeing through to some unspoken understanding kept warm in a protective layer of shirtpocket. The loving scrape of calloused palms over the soft mound of his own hand; the gentle scratch of too-long fingernails accidental along the wrist, not sorry. Sharpened canines shoved toothy in the mouth—unapologetic.</p><p>A half a year later, wrapped up in the warmth of his own scarf until enveloped by the searing heat of the Miya’s living room; the cold of impending January shut out by the golden decadence of warmly-lit windows, arriving with Aran and sitting beside Akagi. The room gradually filled to near bursting til about 2 ½ hours past the rsvp time, when a bolt of lightning graced the room’s worn paneling, 1000 words spilling out all too fast and far too loud. Akagi jumped up but Kita sat still, ankles chained several meters beneath the soft of his cushion, held captive by weak cuffs of woven crows’ feet.</p><p>Kita snuck quietly out to the back porch at the height of the commotion, craved the crisp cold the final night of the year brought, steam billowing turbulent from chapped lips. The rickety slide of the back door spilled a pool of warm light across frosted blades of grass, gold polished by a warm laugh and a promise to return right back. Suddenly Kita was no longer alone: a small, wiry body stood understanding beside his own; its own heat source, easily capable of melting the edge off the cold air flowing into his lungs. Kita felt too close to the sun.</p><p>Inarizaki’s captain, right? Yeah.</p><p>Fire-born eyes blazing into him like was aware of Kita’s seeing.</p><p>I’d love to know you. <i>Blossoms.</i></p><p>Those eyes, those teeth, wanting to know him. Soft-edged plasma coating the skin like water, clung to its surface, dried as hot wax yet somehow still fluid in its movement. This plasma came back to plague him several more times in the coming months, sharpened tongue sliced hot across a wire woven fine of Kita’s ore, never quite in love with its role as a conductor. Conversation beginning at volleyball and wandering tentatively across a taut rope til the earth stretched flat in front in its sandstone expanse, flowing freely from life to friendships to future desires. Kita should have been smarter, should have known better when Nishinoya spoke of grand things Kita had never craved, foreign air he never dreamed of tasting on the tongue.</p><p>But he let himself tumble, he allowed his heart to open slow, blossom delicately with each tentative step across should-be-placid water. It wasn’t the large and loud that drew him in but the soft and inconspicuous; thunder’s quiet rumble across currents of tall grass, stolen laughs pushed quietly through the nose like a secret best left unheard. Yes, Nishinoya was beautiful when his voice echoed loud throughout high-ceilinged gymnasiums, beautiful as his fingers gripped fast and hard to the tree branches, sinuous muscle pulling up a body far too used to lifting its own weight: but the real beauty sat quiet in the fluid of that same lithe body across the court, in that intense gaze, the bastardized Scorpio of its own star system; somehow both hot and cold, burning and soothing. Kita wasn’t surprised when Nishinoya said he'd never desired to settle down.</p><p><i>Kita was</i> surprised when Nishinoya picked up and left across a third of the globe without so much as a goodbye. Kita was surprised by the ache this drew from his bones, surprised by the near-tears freckled along the high of his cheekbones because <i>were we not close?</i> And thus began the questioning:</p><p>What if Kita had said something; What if Nishinoya had stayed? What if he had buried his feet in the soil, allowed his love to spread wild like untamed birdweed: Would he thrive under the loving gaze of Kita’s fertilization, Kita’s growth and harvest? Or would they wither; would the love Kita felt real and solid in the chambers of his heart reveal itself to be an apathetic display of forcing two of the same magnets together, holding them rough with hands hungry for contact, desperate for understanding?</p><p>Had they ever been close; had they ever reached an agreement? Had they ever even touched, or were they caught on either side of a perpetual mobius strip—so far distanced from one another that the opposites of their spectrum nearly overlapped?</p><p>In this moment, mattress hard and cold against the flattened expanse of his sore spine, Kita felt distant: plagued by the lingering haunt, the choice between the reverence of that which fits in the palm of the hand and that which maneuvers the body with the ease of a high tide; to praise the pebble or the mountain.</p><p>He was plagued by the quiet skim of contact beneath teeth-damaged fingertips, the gentle curve of the wrist doused in fluorescent light: What lies beneath the skin; what colors paint the clay of your spirit? What flame glazes and fires it, however great or insignificant? <i>Who was asking these questions?</i></p><p>What do you love? What do you fear? What do you see when you look at the stars at night?</p><p>Nothing. <i>A pause.</i> Everything. Both and all between.</p><p><i>What about me? Do you love me? Do you fear me?</i> And Nishinoya was next to him, body fire-hot beneath the old family quilt; eyes searing through the thick of night like matches struck within the close cradle of cold palms, for once sheltered from the wind. Ever the familiar stranger in the home he built but couldn’t be confined to, pupils burning loud and quiet and indifferently insignificant into Kita’s own and <i>this is all I know. I am caught with no escape.</i></p><p>“Both and all between.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>more kitanoya madness......a wee bit angsty this time. share ur thoughts in the comments, all of em!!!!! I just want to know what's on your mind.</p><p>if you need some love, know there is some coming from me; day or night, wherever you are. you are loved &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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